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130 Pages
Page 53
The Fourth Book contains notes on the chief passages of Scripture which were relied on by Arian disputants. Among these are
I Cor. xv. 28. On the Subjection of the Son.
"If the Son is subjected to the Father in the Godhead, then He must have been subjected from the beginning, from whence He was God. But if He was not subjected, but shall be subjected, it is in the manhood, as for us, not in the Godhead, as for Himself."
Philipp. ii. 9. On the Name above every Name.
"If the name above every name was given by the Father to the Son, Who was God, and every tongue owned Him Lord, after the incarnation, because of His obedience, then before the incarnation He neither had the name above every name nor was owned by all to be Lord. It follows then that after the incarnation He was greater than before the incarnation, which is absurd." So of Matt. xxviii. 18. "We must understand this of the incarnation, and not of the Godhead."
John xiv. 28. "My Father is Greater than I."
"Greater' is predicated in bulk, in time, in dignity, in power, or as cause. The Father cannot be called greater than the Son in bulk, for He is incorporeal: nor yet in time, for the Son is Creator of times: nor yet in dignity, for He was not made what He had once not been: nor yet in power, for what things the Father doeth, these also doeth the son likewise': [374] nor as cause, since (the Father) would be similarly greater than He and than we, if He is cause of Him and of us. The words express rather the honour given by the Son to the Father than any depreciation by the speaker; moreover what is greater is not necessarily of a different essence. Man is called greater than man, and horse than horse. If the Father is called greater, it does not immediately follow that He is of another substance. In a word, the comparison lies between beings of one substance, not between those of different substances. [375]
"A man is not properly said to be greater than a brute, than an inanimate thing, but man than man and brute than brute. The Father is therefore of one substance with the Son, even though He be called greater." [376]
[374] John v. 19.
[375] epi ton homoousion ouk epi ton heteroousion.
[376] It will be noted that Basil explains this passage on different grounds from those suggested by the Clause in the Athanasian Creed, on which Waterland's remark is that it "needs no comment." St. Athanasius himself interpreted the "minority" not of the humanity, or of the special subordination of the time when the words were uttered. cf. Ath., Orat. c. Ar. i. S: 58: "The Son says not my Father is better than I,' lest we should conceive Him to be foreign to His nature, but greater,' not indeed in size, nor in time, but because of His generation from the Father Himself; nay, in saying greater,' He again shews that He is proper to His essence" (Newman's transl.). The explanation given in Letter viii., p. 118, does include the inferiority as touching His manhood.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/basil/life-works.asp?pg=53
